


beast

by saltpans



Series: the crimes of jk rowling [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, And Throwing Daemons In Just For Fun, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, F/M, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, We're Pretending The Crimes of Grindelwald Never Happened, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-17 07:30:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16970373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltpans/pseuds/saltpans
Summary: "Once there was a story," said Dumbledore's daemon, ruffling her feathers.  "A tale of three brothers.  There was a river and a bridge and Death standing on the other side of the shore.  You know it?""You're talking about the Deathly Hallows," Tina said.  In her arms Ben shifted, nose twitching.  "A kid's story.  What does that have to do with Grindelwald's daemon?""Read the story again," said Gywn.  "Everything you need to know is there.""Er, well," Newt said, feeling like he did have to point it out because Dumbledore and Gwyneira had been a bit insane for as long as Newt had known them, "wearea bit pressed for time, so if you could just tell us the important parts--"Florence bit him.  "Hush," she growled.  "I want to listen."(Or, a HDM AU.  Grindelwald's dæmon escapes from state custody.  It's kind of a big problem.  In this house we pretend The Crimes of Grindelwald doesn't exist.)





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> heyyy everybody. [still haven't seen tcog, am not gonna see it, got so mad about spoilers that i started writing again.](https://picqueries.tumblr.com/post/180666055332/so-uh-turns-out-that-i-hate-fantastic-beasts)
> 
> i've loved _his dark materials_ since i was nine and impressionable. 
> 
> here's a dæmon au that's been in my brain on and off for nearly two years. 
> 
> i hate. jkr. 
> 
> also, have a primer on [dæmons](https://hdm.fandom.com/wiki/D%C3%A6mon). it still bothers me, to this day, that i don't have one.

beast

 

The problem with wizards, if you asked Newt Scamander, was that wizards had the rather peculiar idea that wands and spells were the only kinds of magic that existed in the world.  Their certainty that a stick of wood gave them perfect control and infallible protection against the world around them made wizards rather blind everything else going on around them, and tended to lead wizards into underestimating everything that wasn’t also carrying a wand.  

After all, house elves didn’t need wands to Apparate and centaurs didn’t need incantations to read the future in the stars.  An Erumpent could blow up a tree without a curse and a Swooping Evil could navigate without a Point-Me Charm. And dæmons, of course, didn’t need wands to work their own magic, their shape-changing and uncanny knowledge, their hearts and minds and personalities, their bonds with their humans that ran deeper than the sea.  

dæmons had a strange, complex, wonderful magic all of their own.  Wizards knew of it, of course--it was hard not to know of the magic of dæmons, when every witch and wizard Muggle in the world had one--but it was magic of a quiet, unobtrusive sort, and dæmons didn’t need wands, so it was a magic beneath wizards’ notice.  Curious and worth a moment or two of study, much like dæmons themselves, but ultimately unimportant.

So if you’d asked Newt Scamander, who had stared down a rampaging Erumpent or two and had long ago come to terms with the fact that in a large number of situations his wand was, for all intents and purposes, a very nice but quite useless piece of wood and shell, how Gellert Grindelwald could possibly escape from his cell in the depths of MACUSA despite all of the security measures of modern Wizarding America laced and locked around him, Newt would’ve told you that someone would forget to keep a close enough eye on Grindelwald’s dæmon.  

And, unfortunately, Newt would be right.

Grindelwald’s dæmon was called Krimhilde, and she was a raven.  An ordinary raven too, not a magical one, though her feathers were white as bone and her eyes were a pale, gleaming blue.  She was clever, MACUSA’s Aurors agreed, and she had the same silken tongue and magnetic personality as Grindelwald, but a raven couldn’t wield a wand and she was bound, as all dæmons were bound, to Grindelwald’s side.  

Everyone knew that a dæmon could only go a few meters away from his or her human.  It was a law, like the obedience of house elves or the mating seasons of Erumpents. Grindelwald was kept Silenced and immobile, not even permitted to wander around his cell.  Krimhilde, strange and fey as she was, couldn’t go far from him, so the Aurors dropped by to reinforce Silencing spells on her every few days and otherwise pretended that she didn’t exist.  

Unfortunately, no one at MACUSA seemed to remember the fact that Grindelwald, while charming and powerful and clever, was also entirely, completely, and happily deranged.  Personal pain and suffering meant very little to him, and he could endure near anything in the name of his greater good.

So many many years ago, when he’d been a young man and he’d been in love with a brilliant, callous boy, Grindelwald and that brilliant, callous boy had taken their dæmons to a secret place where everything, the earth and the water and the sky itself, had been dead.  And they’d put their dæmons on one side of that dead place and Grindelwald and the boy had walked hand in hand to the other side, leaving their dæmons behind them.

It had hurt extraordinarily, like someone had taken a hot knife and cut out Grindelwald’s heart by inches, but he’d survived it and as a result, his Krimhilde could fly across the ocean without him and neither of them would suffer much over it.

(Newt didn’t learn any of this until later, of course.  At the time of Krimhilde’s escape, much of Grindelwald’s past was still hidden, buried under layers of lies and fear and clever misdirection.  

Newt would have preferred to keep it that way, but for some reason he kept letting people get him  _ involved,  _ and Newt was a digger.)

If you asked Newt, Krimhilde’s escape had been entirely preventable but perhaps inevitable.  All the Aurors had needed to do was keep a careful watch over Grindelwald’s white raven, but because of the arrogance of wizards they hadn’t been able to help themselves.  They’d seen her only as an extension of Grindelwald, even though she was much, much more than that.

Grindelwald’s dæmon had played tame and docile for three months after Grindelwald’s capture.  She’d never strayed more than a few feet from his side. She’d clacked her beak and hissed at the Aurors as angry, frightened dæmons did, perched on Grindelwald’s shoulder, groomed his untidy hair.

And then, when the Aurors’ backs had finally been turned, she’d slipped through the bars of Grindelwald’s cage, plucked out an Auror trainee’s eyes, and had promptly vanished into the wilds of New York City.  

Newt, when he was told about it, put his head in his hands.  

At Newt’s feet his own dæmon rumbled unhappily, her broad claws scraping against MACUSA’s marble floor.    

“As you can imagine,” said President Picquery, whose dæmon was a very lovely green-and-blue occamy and was coiled neatly about her shoulders, watching Newt with jewel-bright eyes, “we’re very concerned.”

“Yes,” Newt said, his voice muffled by his hands, “I rather imagine that you are.  What do you expect me to do about it? Madame President,” he added, respectfully. The Ministry of Magic hadn’t been keen on the idea of letting Newt out of England again and had impressed upon him the consequences of causing another diplomatic incident while overseas.  

Newt was still a bit put off by all of that.  It hadn’t been  _ his  _ fault that Gellert Grindelwald had stolen an Auror’s face and set a frightened, lonely young man on the city.  The mild havoc caused by Newt’s creatures was, admittedly, perhaps a little bit Newt’s fault. He’d been lectured about  _ that  _ quite thoroughly.  

But the whole mess with the International Statute of Secrecy, the Obscurial and the subway and the Aurors,  _ that  _ was Grindelwald’s fault, and this whole new catastrophe was on the Aurors.  Newt had no interest in getting involved, thank you very much. He’d only even come by MACUSA to register his wand properly.  

“You’re a… magical naturalist of sorts, aren’t you?”  Picquery said. Her expression told Newt that she didn’t think very much Newt’s chosen profession.  Newt was used to it.

He resisted the urge to sigh.   [ Florence ](https://www.animalaid.org.uk/badger-cull-statistics-show-urgent-need-ditch-dairy/) shifted so that all of her weight was pressed back against his shins, which he appreciated.  “dæmons aren’t actually creatures,” he said. “They’re not… phoenixes or Augreys or cats or dogs, not really.  I’m a zoologist, not a dæmonologist. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be much help.”

dæmonology was, in Newt’s opinion, about as useful as Diviniation.  Now and again something important could be gleaned from studying dæmon forms (or tea leaves, as the metaphor were), but as a whole the entire field lent itself more to wild conjecture and mass guessing than actual rigorous science.  

“I don’t particularly care,” said the President.  Her dæmon hissed something softly in her ear, flaring his elegant wings a bit to drape them over her shoulders.  “You’re as close to a dæmonologist as we’ve got right now. You’ll be working with Auror Goldstein,” Piquery continued.

Newt blinked.  “Sorry?”

President Picquery looked at him like he was a particularly slow mooncalf.  “You are,” she said, “the only one who caught on to the fact that Grindelwald was in New York in the first place.”  She grimaced. “I didn’t notice myself. But you saw through him.”

Newt almost said, “It was rather obvious, after he tried to have me killed,” but Florence bit his ankle before he could get the words out.  Newt nudged her firmly, but she didn’t budge. “I’m not an Auror,” Newt said. “I don’t--I don’t find people, or track down their dæmons.”

“Auror Goldstein will meet you downstairs,” the President continued, as if Newt hadn’t said anything at all.  “She’s already been briefed. You’ll both have the entire Department of Magical Security at your disposal. There’s not much left of it, but it’s yours.”

“Sorry,” Newt said, a bit louder this time on the off chance that Picquery just hadn’t heard him properly.  “But I’m not an Auror. I just came back for the trial.”

“Mr. Scamander.”  President Picquery’s eyes glittered, hard and bright like a bird’s.  “Let’s not do this, hm?”

“I’m… not sure what you mean,” Newt lied.  Honestly, he should’ve just sent in his testimony via the Floo.  Trans-Atlantic firecalls were terribly spotty and prone to breaking up under inclement weather, but Newt had no interest in getting involved with Grindelwald, not again.  

_ I just wanted to see Tina, maybe take a trip to Arizona, and keep my nose out of trouble,  _ Newt thought, despairing.  

Florence snuffled, her version of laughing.   _  We both know you can’t keep your nose out of anything, dear,  _ she said.    _ You’re a digger.   _

Newt would argue that, but his dæmon  _ had  _ settled as a badger sometime during his second year at Hogwarts, so.  He didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

“Grindelwald’s dæmon has escaped state custody, and we have no idea where she is,” President Picquery said, drawing Newt back into the conversation.  Her occamy shifted, sinuous and graceful. “We don’t know what she’s doing, what she’s planning, or what she wants, but her continued freedom is a threat to not only  _ my  _ people, but to wizardkind as a whole.

“And you,” she continued, holding up a hand to stop Newt’s protest, “are carrying around a  _ Nundu  _ in that case of yours, which is illegal not only in this country but in every country overseen by the International Confederation of Wizards.”

Newt coughed.  “I do not have a Nundu,” he said.  “That would be very illegal and very dangerous, and not at all representative of my commitment to the Statute of Secrecy and international wizarding law.”

The lie worked on the President about as well as it had worked on Theseus, the first time he’d seen the Nundu.  

The occamy dæmon flicked out his tongue.  “I can smell her on you,” he said. His voice was a surprise, thin and whispery where President Picquery’s was smooth and confident, and his scales rustled as he stretched, tasting the air again.  

“Where have you smelled a Nundu before?”  Newt asked. He had never been a very good liar, despite all of the rules he’d broken in school and the trouble he’d gotten up to since then.  It wasn’t as though Newt set out to be dishonest, after all. He tried very hard to be an upright and moral person.

It was just that being an upright and moral person often involved ignoring crooked and immoral laws, because the Wizarding world was about three hundred years behind in terms of ethical and moral development.  

Picquery gave him a mysterious half-smile.  “Lake Tanganyika, during the War,” she said.  “The Germans had three. Nundu breath is a stink that stays with you.”

That was fair, Newt supposed.  

He sighed. 

_ I think we’re well and truly caught,  _ he thought to Florence.  She snuffled again and shifted so that the blunt end of her spine dug into his foot.  

“Where did you say Tina was?”  

President Picquery inclined her head, accepting Newt’s surrender graciously.  “Downstairs, in her office. Three down from the Director’s.”

Newt bobbed his head, stood up, clutching his case very tightly, and took his leave.  As soon as he was out of earshot, he groaned.

“Why does this always happen to me?”  Newt muttered.

Florence snorted unsympathetically.  She was not one for feeling sorry for herself.  Newt tried to follow her example, but sometimes a good wallow was what was best, and he rather thought that if he was going to go haring off after Grindelwald’s homicidal dæmon he deserved a few moments of self-pity.  

“You do tend to stick your nose in it, love,” Florence said. “Chances are we’d stumble on Grindelwald’s dæmon anyway.  At least now we’ll have Tina with us. The rest of the Aurors too, though I doubt they’ll be much use.”

Florence trundled ahead of Newt, her broad nose low to the ground.  The last time Newt was here, MACUSA’s headquarters at Woolworth had been a Billywig hive, witches and wizards practically tripping over each other in their panic.  

Now, some three months later, there was almost no one in the marble halls.  Not that Newt minded--he was unhappy enough about being back here--but the stark change was troubling.  

Either every able-bodied adult wizard in the building was out looking for Grindelwald’s dæmon, or MACUSA was much, much smaller than it used to be.  If the first, Newt would have to contend not only with doing an Auror’s work, which he hated, but with doing an Auror’s work surrounded by frightened, nervy, curse-happy Americans.  Hardly ideal.

If the second, Grindelwald’s influence had gone far deeper into MACUSA’s ranks than Newt had initially thought, and he would likely have to contend with frightened, nervy, curse-happy,  _ hostile  _ Americans.  

“Next time I say that I want to come across the sea, Florence, don’t let me,” Newt said.  

Florence rumbled. “Fine by me,” she said.  “You know I hate boats.”

Her faint sense of displeasure and disgruntlement made Newt smile.  Newt’s fellow passengers had never seen a seasick badger before. A Muggle woman had been so upset by Florence’s discomfort that she’d even whipped up a special gingery candy to help with the dry heaving.  It hadn’t helped much, being that Florence was a dæmon and not an ordinary badger, but both she and Newt had been very touched by the gesture.

They made their way down the hall, down a wide flight of marble stairs inlaid with sharp golden stars, and through a set of wide cedar doors past the common workspace where Tina had once dragged Newt before the President of MACUSA and a Polyjuiced Grindelwald.  From there Florence found another long, imposing hallway, doors marching down the smooth tile like soldiers in ranks.

The first door on the right was closed, and a little golden placard beside it read:

**P. Graves**

_ Director of Magical Security _

_ Head Auror _

Newt counted three doors down and found Tina’s new office, complete with a placard of its own: 

**P. Goldstein**

_ Senior Auror (Probationary) _

_ Magical Security Taskforce - Lead Agent _

Newt whistled softly.  Quite a bit had changed in three months, it seemed.  

He raised his knuckles to rap on the door, but Florence hissed, “Wait!” and reared up on her back paws.  Standing on her hindlegs she only came up to Newt’s waist, her broad flat head level with his hip, so Newt bent a little to accommodate her.  

“Your hair’s a mess, Newt,” Florence said, snuffling disapprovingly.  “And you’ve got a spot of jam, just there--”

“Florence, that’s hardly important right now,” Newt reasoned.  

“And tuck in your shirt, you fool of a boy, you’re thirty-two years old--”

“Florence,” Newt growled, trying to dislodge her, but she was a badger and she just dug her claws in firmly, refusing to be dissuaded.  

“Tuck in your  _ shirt,  _ Newton,” she said.  

He sighed and did as he was told, tucking in his shirt, wiping at his chin--he did  _ not  _ have jam on his face, he had Streeler slime, which was mildly concerning as Streeler slime was caustic, thought Newt was largely resistant to it by now--and tugging uselessly at his hair.  

Finally satisfied, Florence dropped back down to all fours, groomed a claw through her own fur, and waited for Newt to knock.  

He did, suddenly terribly nervous--what if Tina didn’t  _ like  _ Streeler slime?--and waited.  

“Come in,” Tina called, her voice muffled through the door.

Newt swallowed, screwed up his courage, and opened the door.  

Tina beamed at him.  “Newt!” she said, happily.  She stood up, pushing her chair away from her desk. “The President told me you were coming.”

She looked much the same as she had three months ago, tall and dark-haired, though she had a new air of confidence draped around her like a robe.  Her dæmon,  [ Ben ](https://www.adoptapet.com/pet/8464193-kennebunkport-maine-jack-russell-terrier-mix) , barked a greeting and climbed to his feet, shaking out his short red fur, and trotted over to say hello to Florence.

“Yes,” Newt said, a little helplessly.  “I’m here to help.”

Florence and Ben touched noses.  Ben’s split tails wagged furiously.  Newt hadn’t met a Crup dæmon before until he’d met Tina.  She’d told him that Ben had settled in her second year, after she’d punched Ephriam Crackstone in the nose for picking on a first-year.  She’d been the only witch in her year with a magical creature for a dæmon until her fourth year, when a Horned Serpent girl’s dæmon had settled in the shape of a cockatrice.  

“This is Scamander?”  said a second voice.

Newt startled a little bit, looking away from Tina and blinking, like he was trying to clear his eyes of sunlight.  A dark-haired man was sitting on the other side of Tina’s desk. He was pale and drawn, wearing a dark beard and a loose sweater, the sleeves pushed up around his elbows.  A handsome dog dæmon lay at feet, her ears pricked up and angled towards Newt.

Tension thickened in the room.  

“Ah,” said Newt, bobbing a slight bow--why he did that he didn’t know, the Director of Magical Security wasn’t a hippogriff--and silently calling Florence back to his heel.  She stayed where she was, the stubborn creature. Ben angled himself between Florence and the larger dog dæmon, his ears flat against his head. “You must be Director Graves. Newt Scamander, sir.”

Percival Graves blinked at Newt languidly.  This, Newt thought, was the real one. He was much less polished than Grindelwald had been, much less imposing even though his dæmon was very sleek and very beautiful, a kind of Muggle hound with lean flanks and short fur, sandy down her back and flanks, black around her face and chest, and though Graves carried a strange, bitter taste of power with him.  The scent of it filled Tina’s office.

“Mr. Scamander,” Graves finally said.  He heaved himself to his feet, moving stiffly, and came over to shake Newt’s hand.  He had a firm grip and thick scars on his fingertips, on his palm, between his forefinger and his thumb.  His dæmon stayed where she was, resting her head over her paws.

“Mr. Graves is going to help us too,” Tina said, looking between Newt and Graves, perhaps a little nervously.  “The President thought he might have… intimate knowledge of Grindelwald and his dæmon.”

Graves harrumphed, reminding Newt less of a dog and more of a bad-tempered, large cat, and stumped back to his chair.

Newt and Tina exchanged a quick, furtive glance.  Newt didn’t know the real Percival Graves, but his brother Theseus did.  Theseus said that during the War Graves had been an excellent duelist and a skilled Auror, firm and upright in a time marked by lawlessness, but their correspondence had waned some years ago, and as far as Newt knew, Graves had been in Grindelwald’s custody for quite some time.  Whether or not the man was up to hunting Grindelwald’s dæmon across the city remained to be seen.

Tina, reading something in Newt’s expression, shrugged her shoulders a bit.  

If the President had sent Graves here to help with the search, there wasn’t anything Newt or Tina could do about it, much like there wasn’t anything Newt could do about the President forcing Newt to come help.  He could ask Tina later whether or not Graves was trustworthy.

“So, er, now that we all know each other, where are we on the… the search?”  Newt asked. He wasn’t really sure what the proper term was. “What do we know about Krimhilde?”

Tina looked at Graves, who shook his head and made a broad gesture that Newt interpreted as, “This is your mess, so get on with it.”

“She escaped sometime between three and four in the morning yesterday,” Tina said.  She crossed back over to her desk and beckoned Newt to follow her; a file was open and spread out across the dark wood.  Grindelwald stared blankly up front a dossier, his mismatched eyes unsettling even in black and white.

In another picture his dæmon beat her wings, all her feathers raised and bristling.  As Newt watched her, she opened her beak in a silent shriek. She was just as unsettling as Grindelwald.  She reminded Newt of an exposed, sun-bleached bone.

According to the dossier, which Newt skimmed over Tina’s shoulder, Krimhilde had settled some time between Grindelwald’s fifth and sixth year at Durmstrang.  The lateness of her settling was remarked on in some detail. Apparently, prior to her settling she’d prefered extravagant, fantastic shapes--griffins and Runespoors, a phoenix, a chimaera, a manticore--so everyone had been surprised when she’d ended up as a raven, her odd coloration aside.  

Newt tugged the next page of the dossier out from under the first spread.  

“How did she escape?”  he asked.

“She slipped through the bars of Grindelwald’s cage with the Senior Auror on duty was showing a trainee the wards,” Tina said, scowling.  “The trainee heard her and went to investigate. She blinded him and took off. Flew all the way out of the prison. We’ve got the entire Auror Department--”

“What’s left of it, anyway,” Ben muttered.

“--out looking, but there’s a lot of area to cover,” Tina finished.  “We’ve called in reinforcements from Chicago and Tallahassee. The first of them should be arriving later tonight.”

“And Grindelwald?” Newt studied the piece of paper intently. It was a list of sightings and activities, a record of Grindelwald’s crimes starting with his expulsion from Durmstrang near the end of his sixth year and culminating with his actions in New York.  

_ War crimes, kidnapping, murder, torture, improper use of Legilimency, more war crimes, more murder, more torture,  _ Newt thought.  He’d have to take a closer look later.

“His cell’s been locked down,” Tina said.  

“Is he showing the usual signs of separation stress?”  Newt asked. “Pain, disorientation, extreme emotional distress?”  

Tina shook her head.  “He’s fine, as far as we can tell.  That Truth-Telling Potion DepExPo’s been working on isn’t ready yet--keeps melting everything--and we don’t have a powerful-enough Legilimens to break through his Occlumency.”

“DepExPo?”  

“The Department of Experimental Potions,” Graves translated, quietly.

“They’re trying to invent a potion that compels people to tell the truth?”  Newt asked, as guilelessly as he could manage. He was going to have to avoid drinking anything anyone at MACUSA gave him, then.  

TIna nodded. “In theory.  They can’t get it to work yet, so as far as we know Grindelwald’s not suffering any ill effects, even though his dæmon left him. You’re well-travelled.  Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

_ Have we, Flo?    _ Newt sifted through his memories.  

She just grumbled, sorting through memories of her own.  

“I’ve heard stories,” he said, slowly, “In some of the more distant, traditional places, of witches who flew on cloud-pine broomsticks and sent their dæmons all over the world while the witches stayed behind, but I’ve never been able to find any proof that they exist, or existed.  There are still some places in the world were dæmons are intercised--”

Everyone in the room shuddered.  

“--but I’ve never met anyone who’s been able to go so far away from their dæmon before.”  

Newt had, of course, met such a person.  Albus Dumbledore’s dæmon Gwyneira could do it.  After Newt had been expelled, Gywn had turned up in all sorts of places to check in on him, sending him off on little errands around the countryside to keep his mind off his Ministry hearing and his parents’ sharp, brittle disappointment.

Dumbledore very rarely left Hogwarts, but his dæmon liked to take herself off on adventures in Sussex and Wales, liked to glide over the cliffs of Brighton and hunt among the moors of Derbyshire.  

Newt had asked a time or two about Gwyneira’s ability to be so far apart from Dumbledore, but every time he’d tried it Dumbledore had cheerfully and obviously changed the subject.  

That was Dumbledore’s secret, though, and Newt didn’t often go around handing those out.  

Florence shifted, uncomfortable.  

_ Not with Director Graves here,  _ Newt told her.  Florence said nothing, but her silence was both telling and unimpressed.  

“These witches,” Graves said.  Newt glanced at him and looked carefully to the left of Graves’ very dark, very sharp eyes.  “Do you know if they could communicate with their dæmons over long distances?”

Newt shook his head.  “I don’t,” he said. “But dæmons--even ones in non-magical forms--have a magic of their own, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Graves nodded.  “I’ll see what I can do about that, then,” he said.  “There are wards and spells in the… less-visited section of my father’s library.  It won’t do to have her whispering to Grindelwald from halfway across the city. I’m useless in the field at the moment, and you two clearly want to talk.”  He stood up again, still moving very stiffly, and nudged his dæmon with his foot. She sighed, put-upon, and climbed to her own feet, shaking out her fur.

On her feet she wasn’t particularly large or imposing, rising only up to Graves’ knees.  But she was lean as a cord and leggy; Newt looked at her and knew that she had both speed and power when she needed to, and her gleaming white teeth were sharp.  

“Where can I find you?”  Graves asked, directing his attention around to Tina.

“The old Second Salem church, sir.  We’re meeting at seven.”

Graves nodded.  “Seven,” he said.  “Goldstein. Mr. Scamander.”  

Newt and Tina waved him off.  Newt watched out of the corner of his eye as Graves limped to the door, his dæmon following close behind.  

“Well,” said Newt, once Graves had gone, “that was--”

Tina held up a hand.  “Ben,” she said. Her dæmon pinned his ears and loped to the door.  He stuck his nose out, stiffed a bit, and said, “He’s gone, Tina. He’s Disapparated.”

Tina relaxed and Ben trotted back over, sticking his nose quite happily into Florence’s ear.  Newt couldn’t help but grin a little bit; Florence’s affection was spilling over.

Everything so far, their tumultuous sea crossing, being ambushed by the President, the news that Grindelwald’s dæmon was at large somewhere in the city, paled in comparison to Tina’s smile, to the sight of their two dæmons cuddled up to each other like puppies.  

Newt had never quite felt like this before.  He made a note to add “Irresistible urge to write poetry and conjure sunshine” to his ever-growing list of symptoms.  He was keeping track of them as they developed. It might be interesting to compare the courtship habits of modern witches and wizards with those of magical creatures.    

“What was that?”  Newt asked, jerking his chin at the door to indicate Graves’ departure.  “He was not… what I expected. Theseus speaks very highly of him. But he seems a bit scattered.”

Tina sighed.  “The President’s making him help,” she explained.  “And he really doesn’t want to. He’s been putting his life back together--by ruining everyone else’s, though Grindelwald’s supporters have it coming--and has been leaving the Auror Department to those of us who are left.  I don’t… really know what to expect from him. So we’re being careful, right, Ben?”

“More careful than usual,” said Ben.  He looked up at Newt and wagged his tails.  He really was a handsome little creature, a solid liver red from nose to tail, with bright black eyes and a clever face.  “We found Director Graves and Mora--that’s his dæmon, she’s usually more talkative than that--trapped inside a watch tin, and he was a bit unhinged even before all that.”  

“Can he be trusted?”  Newt was very tired already, but then Tina rolled her eyes like Newt was in on the joke and his heart kicked against his ribs.  

“Probably?” Tina said.  “I don’t know. He’s been out of the field since the Obscurial Incident, but he’s very good.  Was very good.”

“We’ll manage,” said Florence, briskly.  “Newt, let me up on that desk. I want to see.”

“ _ Wingardium leviosa,  _ ” Newt muttered.  Florence splayed her claws, floating gently through the air until she could hook her claws into Tina’s desk and pull herself back down.  

“We’ll need a map of all of the magical places in the city,” Florence said, looking up at Tina.  “Krimhilde really doesn’t like No-Majs. And she escaped for a reason. She’ll be looking for something.  Or someone.”

Tina sucked in a breath and something pricked at Newt’s spine.  

“Tina,” he said, slowly.  “What could Grindelwald be looking for?  What else is in New York, aside from MACUSA?”  

“He could just be after supporters or gold or magical artefacts.”  Tina looked at Ben for confirmation, and her dæmon cocked his head, obviously thinking hard.  “Almost all the old families have houses in the city, and there’s no shortage of artefacts or gold or support  _ there  _ .”  

“What else could he be looking for?”  

Newt didn’t know that much about Grindelwald.  He’d fought all over the world during the War, but he’d never actually come across Grindelwald or any of his followers.  But Grindelwald didn’t seem like the kind of man to put himself at a disadvantage without a good reason, and a man without a dæmon, or a dæmon without a man, were vulnerable.  They couldn’t look after each other if they were a whole city apart, and Krimhilde wasn’t very large. She was out in the open, exposed, at risk.

Grindelwald wanted something.  

And more than that, he wanted something and thought he had a good chance of  _ getting  _ it.  

Florence understood at the same time as Newt.  All her fur stood on end, fluffing her up to twice her size.  

“The Obscurial,” Florence said.  “Credence. He didn’t die.”

Tina swallowed.  “No.” Tina’s voice was heavy.  Ben whined. “He didn’t. He was spotted near the docks four days ago.  We’ve been out looking for him, but with Grindelwald’s dæmon escaping…”

_ Credence is alive.    _ A dangerous Obscurial, a terrified young man.  The two pictures of Credence wavered in Newt’s mind’s eye.

He sucked on his teeth.   _  Well,  _ he thought,  _ Florence, my dear, we’re involved.  We best start digging.  _ She growled softly, all her fur still on end.  A map of the city was spread out beneath her claws.  

Five million people, wizards and No-Majs alike, and Newt had to find just one.

“Alright,” said Newt, smoothing down some of Florence’s stiff, wiry fur.  “Best get started, then.”

 

 

 


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two! Sorry about the delay. Writing is hard and my brain is bad. 
> 
> This fic could be subtitled "An Excuse for Anne to Codify All of Her Headcanons and Force Them on People Indiscriminately, Part the Second." Sorry. Ish. 
> 
> Thanks for all your lovely comments!

beast

  


MACUSA’s file on Credence Barebone was, compared to their file on Grindelwald or even their file on Newt, very slim.  MACUSA had his name, his associations, and the details of the so-called Obscurial Incident, and that was it. They didn’t have his age or his family name or any information as to how a very magical child escaped MACUSA’s very watchful eye.  They didn’t even have his dæmon’s form.

Newt didn’t remember seeing Credence’s dæmon at all during the chaotic, terrifying three hours in which he and Tina had chased Credence across the city and fought Grindelwald in the subway.  Whatever she was, she was small enough that Credence could tuck her under his coat. She was something that was good at hiding, something clever enough to stay with Credence even as the Obscurus inside him let loose and tore buildings apart.

But figuring out what that _was_ was beyond Newt.  

 _Alright,_ Newt thought, as he and Tina walked down the street together, their shoulders brushing every other step, _perhaps I should have paid more attention in Dæmonology class._

He knew the basics of dæmon theory.  His Dæmonology Professor, a wiry, whip-thin woman with iron-grey hair and a boisterous little blackbird dæmon, had gone over the general ideas in third year, but Newt hadn’t kept the class after that.  He knew pretty much just what everyone else knew; that everyone had a dæmon, and that dæmons could change shapes through childhood but settled into one final form some time in their teenage years.

Florence had settled into her final shape not long after Newt’s twelfth birthday. He’d been one of the first students in his year to have a settled dæmon.  At Hogwarts, most students’ dæmons settled in their third or fourth years, with the stragglers usually settling by the end of their fifth. Yazed Shafiq, an intelligent, soft-spoken boy one year ahead of Newt in school, hadn’t settled until near the end of his seventh year and it had been a much-discussed and mulled-over topic of conversation.  

Some people--most people, if Newt thought about it, though he couldn’t quite recall Professor Malone’s opinion on the subject, obscured as it was by all of the doodling and napping Newt had done in her class--believed that a dæmon’s final form revealed something about the dæmon’s person’s character.  

That was why Auror Departments were said to prefer wizards with dog dæmons. Well over half the Aurors Newt had ever met, excluding Theseus and a rather determined pair of French Aurors who had once pursued Newt across half of Europe over a misunderstanding involving a tempermental Welsh Green dragon, had all had dog dæmons.

It made sense, if Newt thought about it; Aurors were supposed to be staunch and loyal, determined, good at following orders and working together, experts at hunting and tracking.  Dogs were well-suited to the dangerous but often boring work of keeping order among magical folk.

Newt had grown up hearing all of the little phrases and sayings people had come up with to point out what a dæmon’s final shape meant about a person’s character.  Nonsense like _if you marry a dog be prepared for a slog_ and _white rats and black cats are both fair and sleek, but one speaks in squeaks and the other’s a sneak._ Birds dæmons were supposed to denote clever witches and wizards, snakes the strange and mysterious, dogs hard workers, cats the sly and sneaky.  

 _As if all the dogs in the world are stubborn,_ Newt thought, derisive.   _As if all cats are sly thieves._ Observing and categorizing the behaviors of a species was one thing, but ascribing those behaviors to _human_ qualities, like bravery and goodness and cunning and wickedness, was quite another.  

Newt loved his creatures, but they _were_ creatures.  They weren’t good or evil, wicked or kind; they were just what they were.  

Some scholars also held that those with magical dæmons were great and powerful witches and wizards, special and set apart from their peers who had garden-variety cats and dogs and birds and beetles.  

That, Newt thought, was likely untrue; he had yet to see any kind of scientific basis for such an idea, even though he thought Tina, with her Crup dæmon Ben, was one of the most talented and wonderful witches he’d ever met.  

The greatest and most powerful wizard Newt knew was Dumbledore, and Dumbledore’s dæmon was a gyrfalcon.  Gwyneira was very pretty, of course, very striking and nobly-formed, but gyrfalcons weren’t magical beasts.  She was as mundane as any Muggle’s dæmon. Dumbledore often used her to make a point in class; he _was_ the brightest and strongest wizard of his age--and of Newt’s too, and likely many ages to come after--and his dæmon shared her shape with countless Muggle dæmons.  Muggles, reasoned Dumbledore, couldn’t be that much different from wizards, because no one, not even the most stubborn and disdainful purebloods, could say that Dumbledore wasn’t powerful or that his Gwyneira wasn’t beautiful and clever and fierce.  

Grindelwald’s dæmon was rather ordinary too, aside from her strange color.  Ravens weren’t magical beasts. And Newt knew that he himself wasn’t in the same class as Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but Newt was a fairly decent wizard and Florence was a badger, about as mundane and earthy as she could be.  

 _But what would an Obscurial have for a dæmon?_ Newt wondered.  Would the Obscurus even affect the dæmon’s form at all?  Credence Barebone was the only Obscurial Newt had ever heard of who’d lived long enough to have a settled dæmon.  Most died at eight, nine, ten, far too young for their dæmons to choose one final, lasting form.

Newt sighed.  He wasn’t getting anywhere mulling things over in his own head.   _Time for a consultation._

“Tina,” Newt said, bumping his shoulder against hers gently.  In front of them Florence and Ben padded side-by-side, stepping in each other’s footprints.  Newt tried not to think about how warm it made him feel, because he’d actually only spent about two days with Tina in the entire course of their acquaintance, far too little time to be feeling this fond and silly with fondness, and because he was working.  

They had to get to Credence before Grindelwald’s dæmon did.  They had to.

“Mm?”  Tina had been lost in thought herself.  She and Newt had decided that it wasn’t safe to talk inside MACUSA; Tina’d told him that she and Graves, once he’d been dug out of Grindelwald’s pocket, had been systematically rooting out traitors and sympathizers within Woolworth, but progress was slow and MACUSA’s walls had ears.  Tina had promised Newt that she’d take him to a safehouse that she’d set up herself. They were walking there because she refused to Apparate. She, and all of the rest of the remaining Aurors, were being Traced. The President wasn’t taking any more chances.

While they were on duty, all Aurors were required to carry a wardstone.  The stone tracked them every time they cast a spell and Apparated, kept a record of curses thrown and places visited.  The wardstone was easy enough to circumvent, Tina said, but it was annoying when one was actually trying to hide something.

“Do you know what form Credence’s dæmon has?”  Newt asked. “I never sw her. Or him.”

“Her,” Tina said, cocking her head to the side.  “His dæmon’s female. I don’t think I ever saw her either.  She’s fairly small, I think. Credence kept her hidden. Ben?  Did you ever get a good scent?”

“No,” Ben grumbled, peering back up over his shoulder.  “Never got close enough. All I could smell was that poxy monkey.”

Newt didn’t know what that meant.  “Florence?” he asked. “How about you?  Did you smell her when we were in the subway?”  

“No,” Florence rumbled.  “The Obscurus blocked it out, and then I was too busy trying to figure out why Graves’ dæmon had smelled like a bird.”  

For his disguise to be so convincing, Grindelwald had been forced to Transfigure his dæmon to match Graves’ sleek hound.  Polyjuice Potion didn’t work on dæmons. They could be Transfigured, but that was tricky and detailed and by the end Grindelwald hadn’t been reinforcing his spells.  Florence had caught Krimhilde’s true scent in MACUSA’s interrogation cells. A raven and a hound, apparently, smelled quite different.

Forcing both Grindelwald and his dæmon to reveal themselves had been rather satisfying for both Newt and Florence.  Newt liked it when those responsible for a crime were caught out and punished; Florence liked it when things looked and smelled like and did what they ought to look and smell like and do.  

“So we know Credence’s dæmon is probably not a dog,” Newt said, slowly.  He was very skeptical of the idea that dæmon forms revealed some deep inner truth about their human’s life, but Credence didn’t really seem the type to have a dog dæmon anyway.  

“She’s not magical, either,” Tina said.  “His mother would’ve killed Credence if she was.”  

“Very intolerant woman, wasn’t she?”  Newt muttered, but that made sense too.  Somehow, despite MACUSA’s deplorable practice of finding and separating Muggleborn children from their parents and giving them to wizards to raise, Credence Barebone had avoided their notice.  He’d never been picked up by MACUSA. He hadn’t been on Ilvermorny’s lists. He had, as far as Newt could tell, been a very ordinary, if sad, young man. The Obscurus had only become an issue in the months leading up to Christmas.   

Credence’s dæmon obviously couldn’t be a phoenix or a Nundu.  MACUSA would’ve noticed long ago, when the boy’s dæmon had settled, and they would’ve snatched him up and folded him into the magical world.  

 _Or killed him,_ Newt thought.  MACUSA was not particularly forgiving or understanding of unusual things, and Credence was very unusual.  

“You have no idea,” Tina said.  “Mary Lou--that was her name, Mary Lou, and she had the most awful little monkey dæmon--would stand on a street corner for hours and shout hatred at anyone who passed by.  She was inexhaustible.”

“How many siblings did Credence have?”  

“What does that matter?”  Tina asked, curious.

Newt shrugged.  “Maybe one of them could tell us something,” he said.  “Or give us a direction to go in. One of them survived, didn’t she?  The youngest one?”

“Modesty,” said Tina.  “She survived, but she won’t be much help.  She was Obliviated, first by that Thunderbird of yours and then by Auror Mendoza, on the President’s orders.  She was given back to her original family. Modesty doesn’t even remember that she had a brother.”

“Hmm.”  Newt kept what he thought of _that_ to himself.  Ben and Florence brushed shoulders again, sending frissons down Newt’s spine.  Florence’s delight and pleasure burned brighter than a Patronus in his belly. He didn’t want to ruin that by voicing his opinion about MACUSA’s heavy-handed methods of enforcing their intolerance. “And the other?”

“Chastity, another sister.  She was killed by the Obscurus,” Tina said.  “Credence had some older siblings, too--Mary Lou adopted kids for decades--but two of his brothers died in the War and he had an older sister who married outside of the Second Salemers’ church and moved away from the city.”  

“So there’s no one who might know him?  No one who might know what form his dæmon has?”  Newt asked. The sooner they learned what Credence’s dæmon was, the sooner they could track him down.  Dæmons, once they settled, were constant, unchanging. Newt’s Florence would always be a badger; Tina’s Ben would always be a Crup.  Magic might be able to hide that for a little while, but no magic could shift a settled dæmon’s shape.

Tina shook her head.  Then she paused. “Well,” she began, cautiously, “Mr. Graves probably knows, but--”

Newt didn’t like the sound of that _at all._ “What?” he asked, rather sharply.  Ahead Florence lowered her head, ears pinned back to listen.  “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Graves was leading the investigation into the Second Salemers, before Grindelwald,” Tina explained.  “He had this theory that someone must’ve slipped up around Mary Lou Barebone, because she was _fanatical,_ she was convinced witches and wizards existed even after a few visits from the Obliviators.  Mr. Graves wanted to learn how much she knew. He’d been watching all of the Barebones.” 

Newt frowned.  He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like the sound of that very much.  Perhaps he was predisposed to mistrust Percival Graves because of the mess Grindelwald had made with Graves’ face, but he didn’t want to involve Graves in their search for Credence any more than they needed to.  Grindelwald had targeted Graves for a reason; he’d known that Graves’ face would get him close to the Obscurial.

Newt rather got the feeling that, with Graves involved, their search would become a hunt.  

“Interesting,” Newt said, not sure whether or not Tina trusted Graves, whether or not she’d be offended on Graves’ behalf if Newt voiced his mistrust.  

 _Don’t keep secrets from her, Newt,_ Florence said between Newt’s ears.   _That’s not likely to end well, is it?_

 _Hush, dear,_ said Newt.   _I’ll tell her when we’re somewhere indoors.  I want to be behind wards before I start accusing high-ranking members of MACUSA’s government of conspiring with known terrorists._

 _Oh look._ Even inside his head Florence’s voice was very dry and very fond.   _He can learn._

“We’re nearly there,” Tina said, picking up on some of Newt’s impatience.  “We can talk inside.”

“And where are we going, exactly?”  Newt asked. They were, as far as he could tell, deep inside Muggle New York, well-past MACUSA’s outermost wards and defenses.  

Tina smiled.  “You’ll see,” she said. “Ben?  Are we clear?”

The little Crup dæmon raised his nose and snuffled around for a moment.  “Looks like,” he said.

“Come on,” Tina said, rounding the corner and stopping in front of a little bakery that was tucked between a solicitor’s office and a carpenter’s shop, “it’s through here.”

“What is?”  Newt never could abide by a mystery.

“You’ll see,” Tina said, with a dimpled grin, and opened the door.  Ben followed her, Florence on his heels, so Newt had no choice but to go along, clutching his case tightly.  As soon as he stepped through the door, the smells of warm bread and sweet, sugary frosting hit his nose.

The little bakery was packed full, people jostling for a dwindling supply of rolls and loaves of dark rye bread, chattering in English and Polish and everything in between.  Newt ducked his head and skirted a couple who were arguing, loudly, over the last pair of sweetbread Demiguises and tried to keep an eye on Tina in the crowd.

 _Wait a moment,_ Newt thought, his brain catching up with his eyes, _Demiguises?_

He stopped to examine the little creatures, thinking that perhaps he only imagined the familiar shape, but no, he’d been right; two Demiguises made of sweetbread sat in a basket, neatly labeled and dripping with frosting, lovingly detailed down to their long, sugary beards.

Dazed, Newt took a closer look at the shop around him.  

Erumpent loaves took up nearly an entire shelf, a little placard in front of them announcing that their horns were filled with sweet orange cream.  Fragile marzipan bowtruckles were carefully posed next to glazed, doughy mooncalves. A massive, sugar-prickled Nundu made out of what looked like Newt’s weight in sourdough reared up on his hind legs, and pretzel occamies and shiny Niffler rolls spilled across a flour-dusted countertop.  

And, in a glass case at the end of the counter, were big, soft loaves of bread molded into the broad, lovely shape of Florence’s face, striped with smooth white frosting and dusted with sugar.  

“Look, Florence,” Newt murmured, a steady warmth breaking open inside his chest like an egg, “it’s you.  You cost,” and he peered a little closer at the glass case, while Tina beamed in the background, obviously pleased that she’d surprised Newt, “three cents.  You’re full of cream cheese.”

“Come on,” Tina repeated, nudging Newt’s elbow.  “We’re nearly there.”

Newt let Tina pull him through the little bakery-- _Jacob’s_ bakery, it had to be Jacob’s bakery, Newt didn’t know anyone else who’d go to the trouble of making a life-sized Pickett out of almond paste and spun sugar--and out the back, into a tiny grey alley.  

Newt blinked and looked around, but all he saw was some loose rubbish piled up behind the solicitor’s back door and a few empty crates.  

“Jacob Kowalski’s apartment,” Tina said, her hand still on Newt’s elbow, “can be found at One Hundred and Two Spruce Street, Apartment Nine Bee.”  

As soon as she said it, a rickety, rusty, wrought-iron staircase groaned into existence, climbing slowly and stiffly from the ground up to a dark wood door that began shoved its way in-between one row of bricks and the next.  

“A Fidelius Charm,” Newt said, recognizing the spell.  Dumbledore was very fond of the Fidelius. He had a cabin in Mynydd Hiraethog under Fidelius that he occasionally let Newt hide in, whenever Newt had irritated the Ministry or Theseus or his mother and needed a place to lie low.  

The stairs finished climbing up to the second floor just as the door finished expanding.  A row of neat little windows, complete with windowboxes, popped out and swung around the alley towards the main street.  

“Jacob and Queenie will be upstairs,” Ben explained.  

Newt nodded, faintly.  “After you,” he said.

Ben led the way, his split tails held up high.  Florence followed after, with some difficulty--badgers weren’t really designed to climb stairs--and Newt and Tina came up last.  

Tina didn’t bother knocking before she opened the door, ushering Newt and the dæmons inside.  

“Hello?”  a little dæmon, a long, slender creature with sunny yellow fur and bright, beady eyes, stuck her head around a corner, whiskers twitching.  

“Jules?”  a familiar voice called.  “Who is it?”

“It’s Newt and Tina!”  [ Juliana, ](http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/249/a/a/aa1492a97f35d84917073b82714d3f7e-d2y5rkp.jpg) Jacob’s dæmon, called back, rushing out to greet Florence and Ben.  

Ben nosed Jules’ ear and trotted a little farther into the apartment, but Florence and Jules hadn’t seen each other since Frank dropped Swooping Evil poison over New York, and both were delighted to see each other again.  

“Teenie?”  Queenie poked her head around the corner, following Jules.  “Newt! It’s good to see you! Tina didn’t say that you were stopping by.”  

Queenie’s dæmon, a glossy, radiant starling called [ Yiska ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRDyxLvCze9loC4u-sZmB34zfK1dHl0pzZYe82D4zN_hru9E8cd), swooped off of Queenie’s shoulder, trilling her own hellos.  Yiska’s feathers caught the light in interesting ways; Newt didn’t think that Yiska was ever the same color.  She was green and blue and purple, flecked with bits of gold, and then when the light shifted she was black and brown and silver.    

Newt smiled.  “Bit of a last minute stop, I think,” he said.  “I don’t mean to impose.”

Queenie waved a cheerful hand.  “You’re not imposing,” she said.  “Of course, I don’t live here, so maybe you are imposing a little bit.  Jacob!” she called, turning back around. “Honey! Is Newt imposing?”

“Of course he’s not imposing!” Jacob shouted.  “Let them in!”

Queenie giggled.  “He’d let you in himself, but he’s making rugelach,” she explained.

“I’m at a very delicate stage!”  Jacob called.

Fondness tugged at Newt somewhere below his breastbone.  “Sounds delicious,” he said, and meant it.

“Come in, come in,” said Jules, leaping up onto Florence’s back and settling there in her fur, “make yourselves at home.  Tina, you know where everything is.”

Tina shooed Newt all the way into the tiny, cramped hallway, shutting the door behind them.  The warm, bready smell of the apartment was indistinguishable from the smells of the bakery below and Newt saw that even up here the doorframes were all smeared with flour.  

Queenie ushered all of them down the tiny hall, which rounded a sharp corner and emptied into an equally tiny, brightly lit, cheerful kitchen.  Windows dominated one entire wall, letting weak spring sunlight warm the faded wood countertops, and a squat little stove groaned and grumbled as Jacob pried open its door and carefully set a sheet of small, dark pastries inside.  

“There,” Jacob said, immensely satisfied, “that oughta do it.”  Then he turned around, opened his arms, and folded Newt up into an enormous, floury hug.  

Newt sneezed.  “You clearly weren’t Oblivated very well,” Newt said, once Jacob had let him go.  Jules leapt nimbly from Florence’s back and scrambled up Jacob’s legs, draping herself around Jacob’s shoulders like a long yellow scarf.  

“Nope,” said Jacob cheerfully.  “I only remembered bits and pieces for a while, but then Queenie and Yiska found me,” he gestured at the pair, who beamed, “and as soon as I saw them, I remembered the rest.”  

“I wanted to Obliviate him properly,” Tina grumbled from Newt’s elbow.  Newt shot her an alarmed look, but she was smiling. “But Queenie wouldn’t let me.  She said something _very_ impolite about the International Statute of Secrecy.”

“I can imagine,” said Newt.

“A good man is hard to find,” said Queenie, with a shrug.  She was wearing a lavender dress today, the fabric smooth and silky, and Yiska’s feathers winked and glittered from her shoulder.  “I wasn’t about to let you Oblivate the first one I actually like, Teenie.”

“So why is your apartment under the Fidelius Charm?” Newt asked.  “Because you were supposed to be Obliviated?”

“That, and we needed a safe place to, um.  Look into some things.” Tina shifted from foot to foot, a bit sheepish.  Ben disentangled himself from Florence and trotted over to sit on Tina’s feet, in a show of either comfort or solidarity.  

“Yes,” said Newt, looking between Tina and Queenie and Jacob.  “I think you ought to tell me what it is you’ve been doing, and how it can help us find Grindelwald’s dæmon.”

“That dog?”  Jacob asked, surprised.  He had sugar in his hair.  “What do you mean, find her?  Isn’t she with him? I thought they were arrested.”

“They were arrested.”  Tina rubbed her forehead, tiredly.  “But Grindelwald’s dæmon--and she’s a raven, Jacob, the dog was a disguise--escaped from MACUSA’s custody.  She’s somewhere in the city.”

“Without him?”  Jacob clearly didn’t understand.  He was looking between Newt and the Goldstein sisters too, Jules’ fur beginning to bristle with alarm.  “Wizards can separate from their dæmons?”

“No,” Tina and Queenie said together, at the same time as Newt said, “Not usually.”

Tina and Queenie cut Newt identical, wary looks.  

“What do you mean, _not usually?_ ”  Tina asked, slowly.  

Newt sighed.  “Is there somewhere I can sit?”  he asked. The kitchen, lovely and charming as it was, was very small, and four people packed elbow-to-elbow inside of it was not particularly comfortable, especially not when Florence was the largest dæmon in the room and had to practically flatten herself against the cabinetry to avoid brushing against someone else’s legs on accident.  

“Yeah, sure,” Jacob said, dazed.  “Through… through here.”

The kitchen opened out onto a miniscule makeshift dining room, which was separated from a long, squashy sofa and two mismatched armchairs by a thick, dark curtain.  Past that was another door. Newt sank into one of the armchairs gratefully, scooping Florence up so that she was out of the way and safe from any unobservant feet. Tina took the second armchair, Ben hopping up onto one of the armrests, and Jacob and Queenie settled on the sofa.  Jules unspooled herself from Jacob’s neck and Yiska fluttered down off Queenie’s shoulder, and the mongoose wrapped herself around the starling, both of them fixing their bright eyes on Newt and Tina.

“Who ought to start?”  Newt asked Tina, wryly.  “You or me?”

“Newt,” said Ben.  “Who else do you know who can separate from their dæmon?  You told everyone at Woolworth that you’d never seen this before.”  

Newt coughed, apologetic.  “What I’m about to tell you shouldn’t leave this room,” he said.  “It’s not my secret to share, and I’d hate to cause trouble for someone who’s help and protection has been invaluable to Florence and myself.”  

Everyone in the room nodded and promised to keep Newt’s secrets to themselves.  

He sighed.   _Sorry, Professor,_ he thought.  

“A teacher of mine at school is able to move apart from his dæmon,” he said, carefully.  “He doesn’t like to go far from Hogwarts, but his dæmon likes to travel and she can fly all over the country without him.  I’ve seen her do it dozens of times.”

“Albus Dumbledore,” Tina said, catching on.  

Newt nodded.  Florence dug her broad claws into his leg, her weight heavy and reassuring.  

“How?”  Tina demanded.  “Why? Does it hurt them?”  Jacob and Queenie mostly just looked faintly ill.  Newt couldn’t blame them. Once, just after Newt had been expelled, Newt had been very young and very foolish and he’d gone poking around the cliffs in Brighton looking for Augery nests.  The cliff has crumbled underneath him and Newt had fallen down the side of cliff to the beach below. He’d caught himself in time to avoid serious injury, but Florence had been on the clifftops a hundred feet above and the pain of being so far apart from her had felt like someone had reached inside Newt’s chest and tore his heart to pieces by hand.

Newt had managed to Apparate back up to her, splinching himself in the process--his mother hadn’t been able to get his leg back on quite right, and Newt had been a bit crooked ever since--and he and Florence had spent an entire week cuddled up around each other, refusing to be even a few feet apart.  It wasn’t _right_ to be so far apart from one’s dæmon.  It wasn’t natural. That it hurt was one thing, but the crushing _loneliness_ of being apart from one’s dæmon, the horrible, tearing fear of dying alone with one’s heart beating outside of one’s body, was another.  

He couldn’t imagine how Dumbledore was able to be so far away from Gwyneira.  

“We’re not sure how, or why,” Newt said.  “We never really asked.”

“Didn’t ever seem polite,” Florence added, aiming for levity.  

No one smiled.  

“But it doesn’t hurt them,” Newt continued.  “I doubt they’d do it otherwise.”

“How far apart from each other can they be?”  Ben asked.

Newt shrugged.  “Hogwarts is in Scotland,” he said.  “And Gwyneira--that’s Dumbledore’s dæmon--could visit when I was as far south as Brighton or Plymouth.  I don’t know how much farther than that she could fly, but if she can do six hundred odd miles I would think she could go farther.”

“Dumbledore’s dæmon is a bird too?”  Tina asked, a very Aurorish expression crossing her face.  Newt had seen that look in Theseus’ eyes a hundred times. “Is it just bird dæmons that can travel apart like that?”

Everyone looked at Queenie.  Yiska, still wrapped up in Jules, fluffed all of her feathers defensively under all of the attention..  

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Yiska said, peering up at Queenie anxiously.  “ _We_ sure can’t be that far apart.”  

Newt believed her.  Yiska was odd enough as it was, given that she was female.  Newt had only met one other person whose dæmon was the same sex as themself; cheerful little Alphard Black, the only Hufflepuff ever produced by that family, had a male dæmon.  That, along with Alphard’s remarkably tolerant attitude towards Muggleborns and halfblood wizards, had made Alphard something of a black sheep at school. Alphard had been five years ahead of Newt, but for the few years at school that they’d shared, Alphard had always looked after Newt and Leta and the rest of the kids that didn’t quite fit in.  

It seemed to Newt that attitudes were a bit different in America.  He hadn’t seen anyone react badly to Queenie and her dæmon, but she was still unusual.  Add to that Queenie’s Legilimancy, instinctive and involuntary as it was, and Yiska and Queenie were fairly singular.  They certainly didn’t need the additional attention that would come from being able to be so far apart from each other.  

Queenie shot Newt a look he couldn’t parse.  

 _Sorry,_ he thought.   _I_ have _asked you not to read my mind._

Queenie grimaced and mouthed, “Sorry,” though she didn’t look all that apologetic.  

“Regardless of how common it might or might not be,” Tina said, steering the conversation back on track, “learning how to separate from your dæmon obviously _can_ be done, if Dumbledore can do it too.  We can’t count on Grindelwald’s dæmon coming back to him on her own, then.  If it doesn’t hurt him she doesn’t have any reason to go back. We don’t know how far she can go from him, how long they can be apart, or how dangerous she is on her own.”

“I would assume fairly dangerous,” Newt murmured.  Ravens were clever beasts and Krimhilde was no ordinary raven.  “If she’s looking for Credence Barebone, she’ll probably be hiding near the places he used to visit.  The old church, the streetcorners where he handed out pamphlets, those sorts of places.”

No one in the room startled at the mention of Credence’s name, so Tina had told Jacob and Queenie that Credence was still alive already.  

“We’ve been looking,” Tina said, nodding at Jacob and her sister.  “That’s part of the reason we put up the Fidelius, too.”

“You intend to hide him, when you find him,” said Newt, unable to completely keep the affection out of his voice.  That affection echoed in Florence, who shifted so that she could crane her neck across the space between Newt’s chair and Tina’s and give Ben a rough badgery lick that made his fur stick up at odd angles.

Tina raised her chin.  “We do,” she said.

“Good,” Newt said, “because I was going to do the same thing.”  

He found it a bit suspicious that Tina would put Jacob’s apartment under the Fidelius Charm--which was difficult, exhaustive magic, and put her at great risk should MACUSA cotton on--just to hide Credence Barebone, but then Newt had been away for three months.  He knew very little about the situation at MACUSA.

“Is there anyone in the Auror Department that you trust?”  Newt asked. Florence shifted, and Newt knew what she wanted him to say.  “I don’t know any Aurors here, and I’m not sure I trust this Percival Graves.”  

Ben and Tina exchanged a glance.  “Mr. Graves will help us track down Grindelwald’s dæmon,” Ben said.  “He’s not a sympathizer, and he can be trusted to do whatever he needs to do to keep Grindelwald in prison.”

“But I don’t know if he’d go against the President and help us hide Credence,” Tina continued.  “He’s very--upright, and he’s always backed the President. They were friends in school, and they fought together in the War.”  

Newt remembers the President’s face when she’d described the stink of a Nundu.  That put her--and Graves, apparently--in the African theater during the War, though Newt knew from Theseus that Graves had been in Europe too.  

He nodded, slowly.  Newt trusted Tina, so if Tina trusted Graves at least a little bit, Newt could trust him too.  “Theseus--my brother, you might know of him, he’s a Senior Auror in my Ministry--liked Graves well enough. They were… companions during the war.”  Theseus had always been rather predictable in his choice of _companion._  He’d go with anyone for a time, man or woman, so long as they were intelligent and quick-witted and powerful.  Newt was slowly forming a picture in his head of Graves as a person rather like Leta Lestrange. Aloof and distant, perhaps, fierce and quarrelsome, but clever, and honest, and skilled.

Leta’s dæmon wasn’t a dog, though; Thierry had settled as a great black cat during the Christmas holidays in Newt and Leta’s third year and Newt honestly couldn’t remember him spending even a few moments in a dog’s shape.  Thierry had always prefered snakes or cats. In school his favorite game had been to take the shape of a lion and roar at passing Gryffindors, sending them scurrying away from their own mascot.

 _I really should write Leta a letter,_ Newt thought, distracted.  Florence nipped at his thumb to get him back on track.  Newt cleared his throat and scratched behind her ear, apologetic.

“You’re sure he’s not a Grindelwald supporter?  He’s a pureblood, isn’t he?” Newt asked. Grindelwald had an uncanny ability to find friends and allies all over the world, especially among those with some little bit of power of their own.  Politicians and purebloods, people who had grown up or gotten used to wielding their money or their influence like a sword. As the Head of the Auror Department and the Director of another, Graves had considerably more than just a bit of power.  Such men were, for reasons Newt couldn’t really understand, drawn to Grindelwald like Billywigs to Murtlap essence.

“We’re sure,” Tina said.  “Some of Grindelwald’s friends killed Graves’ brother during the War.”

Newt nodded to himself again, sorting that information away for later.   _Florence?_ He thought.  

 _Sounds like he’ll help us find Grindelwald’s dæmon,_ said Florence.   _Beyond that, I’d be careful, Newt.  His dæmon has teeth._

Newt cleared his throat, folding Florence’s advice away inside him.  “So what are you planning?” he asked. “Grindelwald’s dæmon will be looking for Credence, and MACUSA is looking for Krimhilde.  How do we go about keeping MACUSA away from Credence while helping them find Krimhilde?”

“That’s… a work in progress,”  Tina said, rubbing her forehead.  

“We’re helping,” Queenie jumped in helpfully, gesturing to herself and Jacob.  “I’ve been trying to find him,” she tapped her forehead, “and Jacob knows a lot of the No-Maj places were people can go to get help.”  

Newt cut Jacob a quizzical look. Jacob shrugged.  

“Y’know, churches and such,” he explained.  “They give away food, let people down on their luck sleep on the pews sometimes.  I figure the kid probably doesn’t have any money, right?”

“Probably not, no,” Newt murmured thoughtfully.  That could be helpful; MACUSA thought so little of Muggles that the other Aurors probably wouldn’t even consider checking church-pews or charities for Credence.  But Credence knew that world--that would be a good place to hide.

If he planned on hiding.  He’d seemed rather upset in the subway, not that Newt could blame him, and Credence, being largely indestructible and possessed of a toothy magical parasite capable of leveling buildings, was in a rather unique position to act upon his anger and pain.  

At least his dæmon wasn’t a dragon.

“It’d be best if you and I concentrated on finding Grindelwald’s dæmon, for now,” said Tina decisively.  “The President knows us; she’ll be watching us closely. We can try and find Credence that way while Queenie and Jacob work their way through the No-Maj world.”

“It’s risky,” Ben added, his little face solemn, “and once we find Grindelwald’s dæmon we’ll have to move fast to keep her away from Credence, but at least we’ll keep the rest of the Aurors away from him.”

“Yes,” said Newt with a sigh, scritching Florence behind the ears absentmindedly.  “When are we meeting Graves?”

“Seven,” said Tina, pulling an old silver watch out of her pocket and consulting it.  “We better hurry. I don’t want to Disapparate from here, the wardstone will pick it up.  Queenie, Jacob, where are you looking tonight?”

“St. Paul’s,” Jacob said.  Jules uncurled from around Yiska and climbed back up onto Jacob’s shoulders; Yiska fluttered up to perch on Queenie’s knee.  “Then we’re gonna go up to St. Andrews, and poke around that big ugly cathedral on Mulberry Street.”

Tina nodded.  “We’ll catch up with you tonight.  I know what cathedral you’re talking about; we’ll meet you there after we’re done with Mr. Graves.  It’s not far from a few places the President wants us to check.”

Tina stood, Ben hopping down to the floor and shaking himself vigorously, and Newt did the same.  He set Florence down and offered Queenie and Jacob a crooked smile. “It’s good to see you,” he said.  

Queenie smiled back, and Jacob waved Newt off.  “You can stay here with me, after,” he said. “I’ll feed ya right.  The rugelach’ll be done by then.”

“I’d like to try one of those cream-filled Erumpents, I think,” Newt said.  Jacob blushed.

Tina urged Newt back out through the kitchen, into the hall, and out the door before Newt could let Jacob distract him with the intricacies of creature-based pastries.  

“We really are going to be late if we don’t hurry,” Tina muttered, hustling Newt down the rickety iron stairs.  “Come on, we’ll just go and Disapparate from the end of the street--”

Newt and Florence followed her back out onto Spruce Street, down the bustling walkways, and into another dingy alley, where Tina took Newt’s elbow and said, “Ready?”

Florence clamored onto Newt’s shoes and dug her claws in.  Ben, likewise, gripped the hem of Tina’s pants in his teeth. “Ready,” said Newt.  

He disliked Side-Along.  Tina pulled him into a dark, twisting tunnel, pressure digging in, bearing down, and Newt tightened his grip on his case, waiting for it to end, and then they stumbled out in yet another alley, this one even grimier than the last.  Newt coughed and tugged his coat straight; Florence sneezed and shook herself vigorously.

“You’re late, Goldstein,” said Graves, who had traded his sweater for a long, somewhat threadbare coat and was leaning against a brick wall watching Tina and Newt, his dog dæmon sitting quietly at his feet.  

Out here in the gathering darkness, Graves’ dæmon was much more imposing.  She wasn’t the kind of shaggy, curly-haired dog that flopped about and always appeared to be grinning; her lines were clean and severe, her nose long and narrow, her ears sharp and upright.  Her bright eyes flashed against her black fur, and her teeth were very white.

“It’s six fifty-eight,” Tina said, letting go of Newt.  “We’re on time.”

Graves peered up at the twilight gloom intently.  “Your watch is wrong,” he said. “It’s three past seven.”

Tina harrumphed.   “Fine,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at Newt.  “We’re here now. Have you seen anything?”

Graves shook his head while Newt, as surreptitiously as he could manage, checked his own pocket watch.  It was, oddly enough, three minutes past seven.

“I put up wards on the church to alarm if that damn bird shows her beak, and we stopped by the cells to put up a few more to try and keep her and Grindelwald from communicating, but I haven’t seen anything.”

“Did you talk to Grindelwald?”  Tina asked. Graves arched an eyebrow at her.  

“No,” he said.  “He’s under about half a dozen different Silencing spells.”  

Newt happened to be watching Graves’ dæmon, so he was the only one who saw her pin her ears back, a snarl crossing her face, before she shook herself and the expression vanished.  

Tina sighed.  “Well, what do you think?  Should we start here and hit a few other places tonight?”

“Have you seen the church before, Scamander?”  Graves said.

“Erm, no, actually.”  Newt met Graves’ eyes for a moment and then broke away, startled by the force of them.  He carefully focused on Graves’ right ear instead, feeling as though his skin had pulled too tight between his shoulder blades.  

Florence rumbled.  

Graves nodded and turned on his heel.  “Come on then,” he said, over his shoulder.  “It’s a good a place to start as any.”

Graves’ dæmon followed him, alert and made fierce by the dark, and Tina and Ben went after, Tina consulting her watch again, muttering under her breath, and Ben sniffing the cobblestones with his split tails rigid behind him.

Newt and Florence took up the rear, leaving the alley last and catching their first glimpse of the church where Credence Barebone, the oldest and most powerful Obscurial ever recorded, had grown up.

The Church of the Cleansing Fire of a Second Salem, which Newt thought was a rather ungainly and awkward name for an organization bent on the destruction of wizardkind, wasn’t much to look at.  He didn’t imagine that it had been even when it had been upright. The church had been reduced to a few shattered piles of wood, a gaping hole in the roof, bricks strewn about. An overturned pew, a beaten pulpit.  A tattered, faded banner, ripped in a dozen places, two hands breaking a wand stitched out in dark thread.

Newt skirted the destruction, impressed despite himself.  “Credence did this?” he asked.

Tina and Graves both nodded.  

Newt stepped across the threshold, searching for signs of either Credence or Grindelwald.  Florence began to snuffle around, sneezing at the harsh sting of ward-magic. Newt cocked his head to the side, cast a bright, silvery _Lumos,_ and started to read the dust.  

The entire church had been covered up with Muggle-repelling wards and cast in preservation charms; it was, three months on, still technically a crime scene, and Tina’d told Newt that anything related to Grindelwald’s time in America had been preserved on the President’s orders.

Newt could appreciate the foresight, if anything.  The signs of an Obscurus’ presence were as clear in the shattered church as if they’d been made only a few hours ago.  There by the collapsed stairs were the gouges and scratches burned into the wood; there on the ground was the imprint of Mary Lou Barebone’s body where she hit the floor and died; there by the soot-stained fireplace was the smeared golden dæmon-dust of Chastity Barebone, the fallen beam that had killed her and had scattered her dæmon into particles of light.  

Really, it was remarkable that MACUSA’s Aurors hadn’t suspected an Obscurial before Credence had quite literally exploded all over the subway.  The signs were as plain as day, and Newt had only seen a few Obscurials. Soot-marks, gouges in the earth, shredded wood, splintered stone; only an Obscurus had that kind of _power,_ and that kind of fury.

Newt read the signs, constructing the Church’s last few moments as best as he was able.  Mary Lou, Credence, and one of the other children--the little one, if Newt had to guess, looking around the child’s things scattered about the church’s upper floor--had been on the balcony when the Obscurus had come roaring free.  Mary Lou had fallen and had died looking up at the sky. The child had fled, leaving footprints in the blackened wood. The Obscurus had wrecked much of the church, ripped holes in the roof and dropped half the ceiling on Chastity, who’d died before she could reach the door.  

And then--

 _What?_ Newt thought, searching for a sign.   _And then what?_

How had Credence gotten from here to the subway?  Where were the marks of his dæmon?

“Florence, have you found anything?” Newt murmured, checking underneath a miserable little wood-slat bed.  

“Not really,” Florence said with a sneeze.  She’d been snuffling along the stairs. “I can smell all sorts of animals, but any one of them could be Credence’s dæmon.  Too many people have come through.”

Newt grimaced.  He peered around the floor by the beds and found a strange set of scuff marks.  There, preserved in the charmed dust, was a set of footprints, a huddled dust-mark, and the impression of what looked to Newt like knees.  

He measured his foot against the prints.  The shoe-mark was wide and neat. A man’s shoe, Newt thought.  Any number of men had been through here since the Obscurial Incident, but some instinct of Newt’s twitched hard.  

“Mr. Graves,” he called, sticking his head over the broken railing.  Below Tina and Ben were keeping watch over the street, searching the sky, and Graves and his dæmon were doing something complicated with a wand and what looked like a fair bit of blood.  Graves had cut open his palm and was tracing runes on the floor in his own blood. At his name, Graves looked up. “Can you come up here for a moment?”

Graves grunted and did as Newt asked, his dæmon loping ahead of him.  As he came up the stairs Newt watched him flex his hand, the cut on his palm closing over.  

 _The real Graves can do wandless magic,_ Newt told Florence.   _It wasn’t just Grindelwald._

Florence inspected her claws.   _Be careful,_ she said again.   

“What do you see?”  Graves asked, when he made it to the top of the stairs.  His dæmon snuffled around the corners, though she never went more than an arm's length away from Graves.  

“Just a hunch,” said Newt.  “Can you stand here, please?”

Again Graves did as he was asked, coming over to stand where Newt had pointed, his shoe lining up with the print preserved in the dust.  

Newt made a soft sound of satisfaction.  “Grindelwald was here too,” Newt said. “He must’ve come after the Obscurus killed Mary Lou Barebone.  And Credence was here…” The huddled dust marks in the corner, the impression of knees. Credence had been here, probably frightened, and Grindelwald had come and knelt beside him.  And then--

“They Disapparated from here,” Newt said suddenly, putting all of the pieces together.  “Grindelwald and Credence. He must’ve taken Credence with him by Side-Along.”

“Where would they have gone?”  Graves asked.

Newt mulled it over.  

“The sister,” said Florence, lifting her head.  “The younger one, Modesty. They thought she was the Obscurial, not Credence.  Remember?”

Newt did; in the subways, Grindelwald had been talking as though he’d just discovered that Credence was the Obscurial, the weapon he’d been after for months.  The files he’d read on Tina’s desk had told him a little more. Grindelwald was a Seer. He’d Seen that the Obscurial had been a child close to Mary Lou Barebone.  The only Barebone young enough to be a traditional Obscurial had been the youngest, Modesty, who had just turned eleven.

Credence hadn’t crossed Grindelwald’s mind.  

Graves hummed thoughtfully, blinking down at his dæmon.  “I remember her,” he said. “A bit of a thing. Blonde, rather odd.  She was always playing down in the street.”

Newt eyed him.  He still didn’t trust the close eye that Graves had been keeping on the Barebones; he found it more than a little strange that a man as busy and powerful as Graves would spend any fraction of time watching a family of Muggles go about their business.  

But Graves had information that Newt didn’t.  Torn, Newt hesitated.

Florence, irritated both by the caustic smell of ward-magic and the need to find Credence before Krimhilde did, snorted and said, loudly, “Do you remember what Credence’s dæmon is?  We don’t know what to look for.”

Newt startled.  He hadn’t been intending to ask that, though he supposed it was a good question.  

Graves studied Newt intently for a moment, expression unreadable, and then his dæmon Mora said, quietly, “She’s a cat.  A tabby, I think. She was always curled up underneath his coat. Her name is Temperance, but Credence calls her Asa.”

“He’s protective of her,” Graves added, as his dæmon leaned against his leg, her dark eyes keen and watchful.  “And she is protective of him.”

From everything Newt had heard of Credence’s life, Credence and his dæmon had reason to be protective of each other.  

Still, it would be easier to find a cat dæmon than a bird; cats were easier for Florence to smell.  

“So where do we go from here?”  Tina called. She’d come to stand at the bottom of stairs well Ben still stood guard by the door.  “To the sister’s house, or the subway? Credence was seen in other places too, that night. The corner of Oak and 11th was a favorite spot of his, and he killed that No-Maj senator uptown.”  

There were rather a lot of places to check out.  Grindelwald and Krimhilde would have known all of those places because Credence had trusted him, for a little while at least.

 _We need to meet up with Jacob and Queenie tonight,_ Florence reminded Newt, speaking softly between his ears.   _We can’t meet up with them and go around to all of these places.  There isn’t time. Grindelwald’s dæmon has a head start._

“We ought to split up,” said Newt, quietly.  He didn’t like it, but Florence was right. There wasn’t time to go snoop around everywhere that Credence might be.  The city, even this little part of it, was too big. Newt and Tina needed to make up for lost time. Tina shot him a dark look from the bottom of the stairs and opened her mouth to argue, but Graves shrugged and said, lazy, “I agree.”

Tina rounded on him.  Ben still stood at the door watching the street, but all of his short red fur stood on end, his hackles rising. “Newt’s not an Auror,” Tina growled.  “And Grindelwald’s more than a match for any of us alone. _You_ should know that.”

Graves didn’t react, but his dæmon did; she snarled deeply, her fur bristling up like Ben’s, flashing her long teeth.  

“Krimhilde isn’t Grindelwald,” Graves said, evenly.  “Dangerous enough, I’ll admit, but she can’t wield a wand.”  

Newt twitched but didn’t say anything.  He wanted Graves to pick one of the three locations and leave.  If Graves underestimated Grindelwald’s dæmon and got himself in trouble, that was hardly Newt’s problem.  

Florence lowered her head.  She didn’t like the idea of that, but she and Newt weren’t schoolchildren anymore.  They couldn’t look after everyone.

“Unless you want to bring more people in on this, splitting up gives us the best chance of finding Barebone or Krimhilde before one finds the other,” Graves pointed out.  Mora was still snarling softly.

Tina said nothing.  Graves rolled his eyes.  “Who do you want me to call in?”  he asked, challengingly. “Mendelson or Crackstone?”  

Tina scowled.  “Fine,” she said.  “Have it your way. Sir.”

Graves inclined his head, satisfied.  “I’ll go to the subway. Send a Patronus if you run into any trouble.  We can meet back here in an hour, on the hour. Mora,” he said, reaching out for his dæmon.  She went to him, teeth still bared, and they vanished in a swirl of cloth and fur.

“Splitting up is a terrible idea,” Tina grumbled.  She drew her wand and tucked it up into her sleeve, where she could have it in her hand in a moment if she needed to.  

Newt shrugged, apologetic.  “See you in an hour. Be careful, please,” he said, grabbing hold of Florence, and then he turned on his heel and vanished too, stepping out of his turn into another half-destroyed, crumbling building.

Like the church, it was a miserable place, a slumped collection of grey stone and thick grime, rainmarks and water damage streaking the walls and bowing what was left of the roof.  The tenement house had been warded too; the magic washed over Newt’s skin, prickled Florence’s fur. He shuddered.

“The Obscurus was here,” Florence murmured.  Half the roof was torn away, great chunks of brick and stone ripped out of the walls.  What was left of the wallpaper was tattered and shredded.

Newt hissed through his teeth.  “I think you’re right,” he said, looking around.  

This, he thought, was where Grindelwald had come with Credence.  This was where Credence had realized himself, had boiled up in the Obscurus’ shape and torn his way through half the city.  

Newt drew his wand and murmured, “ _Verum proferre._ ”  Pale light washed over the ruined tenement house, throwing up wavering shadows.  A child hiding in a cupboard by the stairs, clutching her dæmon to her chest. A man between the child and the door.  Credence trembling wildly, smoke curling away from his hands.

“ _Finite,”_ said Newt, satisfied that he’d gotten the right of it.  Grindelwald and Credence had come here, looking for Modesty.  Something Grindelwald had said or done, some way that he had acted, had turned Credence against him, and Credence had replied by letting the Obscurus free.  

“So we know how he got to the subway,” Newt told Florence, who was cautiously snuffling the floorboards.  “We just need to know where he went after that.”

“Let me sniff around,” Florence said.  “If I can get the smell of Credence’s dæmon, I should be able to help.”

“With luck she’ll have dropped some fur,” Newt muttered, looking around at the sad ruined building.  “We could work some proper magic with that, I think,”

Florence only grunted, snuffling to herself.  Newt peered in dark corners, studying the watermarks and signs of wear on the floorboards, the walls, even the ceiling.  Credence, when he had given into the Obscurus, hadn’t been discriminating. He’d destroyed it all.

Newt was inspecting a long, savage gash cut into the ugly taupe wallpaper when he heard a small, sharp down, like claws scraping against bricks, and went still.  

“Florence,” he murmured, but Florence didn’t hear him; she was three or four meters away, pulling at the bond between them, searching for the smell of Credence’s dæmon.  

Newt heard the scratching again.  It made gooseflesh rise on his arms and the back of his neck.  It could just be a rat-- this was New York, after all--but all the same, this building was supposed to be abandoned, warded.  It was supposed to be watched.

“ _Homonum revelio,”_ Newt whispered, throwing his wand out.  Wandlight rushed over the ruined house and showed Newt nothing.  Frowning, he flicked his wrist again and said, “ _Dæmonium revelio_ ,” and this time his spell glowed orange around the shape of a small dæmon, a bird rooting around among the shattered wood and splintered bricks behind a door just past where Florence was snuffling, head low to the ground.

“Florence,” Newt said, reaching for her, but Florence was already at the door, nudging it open with her broad nose.  “Florence, come away from there, it’s Grindelwald’s--”

The door swung open, and a bone-white raven raised her head, her pale beak gleaming wetly in the light.  Krimhilde ruffled her wings and cocked her head to the side. Florence froze, a growl building low in her throat.  Newt raised his wand.

Grindelwald’s dæmon opened her beak and said, in a voice as bright and clear as a bell, “Ah, yes.  I’ve been expecting you. You must be Newt Scamander.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why I picked everyone's dæmon forms, because I forgot to talk about that in the last chapter:
> 
> Newt's dæmon Florence (meaning "blooming") is a European badger. Badgers are earth animals, and in popular culture represent hard work, loyalty, and solidity. Badgers can also really, genuinely fuck you up. They have claws, teeth, and an impressive disregard for their own mortality, which I think is a facet of Newt's character that a lot of people overlook. 
> 
> Tina's dæmon Ben is a Crup, which is basically a magical Jack Russell terrier. In Pullman's canon, dog dæmons typically belong to either 1) servants or 2) soldiers. Wizard cops seem to fit nicely between the two. Dogs are loyal, pack-oriented animals and many of them are hardworking, intelligent, and tenacious. Despite their size Jack Russells are efficient prey-catchers. 
> 
> Queenie's dæmon's name is Yiska, meaning "foresight" in Hebrew. Yiska is a common starling, a very beautiful, often overlooked and underestimated bird. Birds have traditionally been seen as symbols of the soul, of higher knowledge, and all sorts of lofty, noble ideas. Starlings are very hardy and thrive almost everywhere in the world. 
> 
> Jacob's dæmon Juliana (Jules) is a slender mongoose. Mongooses are often seen, through a lens of both traditional folklore and pop culture, as protective animals. Despite their relatively small size they're capable of fending off and killing other large animals, most famously cobra snakes. I like them because they are Good Tubes. 
> 
> Graves' dæmon's nickname is Mora, and she's a dog! We'll get to what kind of dog exactly soon. Any guesses? 
> 
> Leta, though she doesn't appear directly in this fic, has a black janguar for a dæmon, and his name is Thierry. 
> 
> Seraphina's dæmon, as mentioned in the last chapter, is an occamy. I picked an occamy for her because it combines both serpent (cycles, feminine power, cunning, etc) and bird (intelligence, the soul, power, etc) symbolism, and is just badass. His name is Gauvain, meaning "white hawk of battle," because, again. Badass. 
> 
> Dumbledore's dæmon is called Gywneira, which is Welsh, and she is a gyrfalcon. Bird symbolism is the best. 
> 
> Grindelwald's Krimhilde ("grim mask, battle mask") is a white raven. Ravens are trickster symbols, intelligent and cunning, and are also associated with death. Krim, due to her unusual coloring, is even more so.

**Author's Note:**

> Newt's dæmon is a European badger. Tina's dæmon is a Crup. Picquery's dæmon is an occamy, and Grindelwald's is a raven. Pictures attached as appropriate. Graves' dæmon is a kind of dog. Any guesses?


End file.
